An individual with a disease, particularly a chronic disease, may be required to monitor various health parameters on a regular basis in support of any treatment or therapy that he or she is undergoing or receiving. Today, advances in medical research enable a range of therapeutic options to treat a given disease, or ailment and/or their symptoms, where each of the proposed therapies targets a particular biochemical or physiochemical process underlying or associated with the disease to provide either a cure or relief from the disease symptoms. For example, if one were to consider various options available for treating pain symptoms, the possible diagnoses medicaments and therapies are many. It is possible that the therapy/medication a patient receives could be subjective and depend upon the particular doctor/physician, i.e., his/her background, expertise and past experiences. For example, a physiotherapist or an orthopedic physician may treat a pain symptom differently than a physician or pain management specialist. Although a doctor plays a critical role in diagnosing and prescribing the therapy, the patient (and his/her family members or care givers) also has great responsibility in complying with the prescription, and following the course of action for achieving improved health and better quality of life. However, unfortunately, depending upon the patient demographics and nature of the disease, health care management of pain management and implementation of pain management has become a daunting task and an expensive affair.
For example, of the all diseases, chronic pain is one of the most underestimated health care problems in the world today, causing major consequences for the quality of life of the patients and the family members and has been a major burden on the health care system. The most common causes of chronic pain are musculoskeletal problems (fractures, dislocations, soft injuries) and inflammatory conditions, with back pain and arthritis pain symptoms accounting for a significant portion of the overall chronic pain population. The four most common ways to treat pain are: (1) pharmaceutical (e.g., analgesics, aspirin; NSAIDs, Ibuprofen, COX-2 inhibitors, celecoxib; opioids, morphine), (2) procedural (neuro-stimulators, pulsed radiofrequency, intrathecal), (3) psychological (behavioral, cognitive), and (4) physical (e.g., heat, cold, transcutaneous electric nerve simulation (TENS), therapeutic ultrasound, infrared, microwave or shortwave diathermy, electro-magnetic radiation, acupuncture, massage). Although pharmaceutical methods (e.g., drugs) are most widely used for treating pain, individuals on over the counter or prescription drugs for pain are frequently dissatisfied with the results of the pharmaceutical treatment. Further, the adverse side effects that drugs may cause on prolonged usage is shifting the focus away from drugs toward alternate methods for managing chronic pain. The procedural methods are invasive, expensive and their effectiveness has been difficult to quantify. Psychological therapies often lack practicality and their success rates have been limited. Finally, physiotherapy based methods have been proven attractive, but they are inconvenient, require bulky/complex instruments, and regular office/hospital visits, all of which lowers compliance. In addition, these therapies are often not supported by quality clinical data despite tremendous advances made in understanding pathophysiology and pain signaling.
Although, a number of physical medicine/modalities based therapies have been administered to treat musculoskeletal pain, identifying the optimal therapy and dosage for pain symptoms has been elusive. For example, clinical data published in the literature indicates that the application of physical medicine is appropriate/beneficial in some cases and not so beneficial in other cases. The response from patients to these methods is similarly mixed. Given this background, the patient (or his/her doctor) has no way of knowing what is the best treatment method. If one were to consider the combined use of these the application of physical therapies, the possible variations may be several (including dosage, therapy session and duration), but combination therapies may provide an opportunity to fine the therapy to make it efficacious or even personalized, especially when one takes advantage of modern technological advances such as computing, internet of things, sensing, connectivity, big data, and analytics in conjunction with electronic medication/therapy.
Therefore, there exists a need for a medical device and an associated system for offering improved therapies for sustained pain relief that takes into account objective and subjective patient feedback and further takes into account the statistical certainty of obtaining a satisfactory outcome.